Tom Brady posts moody Instagram about a storm and here we go again

If there’s one thing we know about the New England Patriots, it’s that they handle outside criticism unnervingly well – and if the team even sniffs adversity or doubt, the first person to start seething is Tom Brady.

This time the controversy has been supplied by an ESPN report from Seth Wickersham that contends the relationship between Brady, Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft is deteriorating toward the point of no repair, and that this could be their finally year together.

The article makes Kraft and Belichick out to be the pawns and/or victims of Brady’s machinations to maintain his role as the starting quarterback, insinuating that the Jimmy Garoppolo trade split them apart. Make no mistake about it, Brady comes out the villain in Wickersham’s story.

Yup, that seems about right. When the world outside 1 Patriot Place in Foxborough, Massachusetts tries to come for him, this is how it goes. Brady gets indignant and even more maniacal in his desire to succeed. The chip on his shoulder is as deep as the Grand Canyon.

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And however annoying or pretentious it may sound, the truth is that it’s the Patriot Way.

In 2007, the season following the SpyGate revelations, Brady put together the best regular season ever by an NFL quarterback and the Patriots entered the Super Bowl with an unprecedented 18-0 record.

In 2011 after Robert Kraft’s wife Myra, beloved by the Patriots, died of cancer at the age of 68, the team played the entire season with “MHK” patches on their jerseys. They again made it to the Super Bowl.

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Then there was DeflateGate, which was a direct attack on three people — Brady, Belichick and Kraft.

They won Super Bowl XLIX in the immediate aftermath of the ball-deflating drama, when they were still running on pure adrenaline. But by the time found themselves in Super Bowl LI, it was something different altogether. Kraft had been fined an unprecedented $1 million and docked a first-round pick in 2016 and a fourth-round pick in 2017.

That, in addition to having to hold an embarrassing press conference about PSI and then field questions about the scandal for another year, left Belichick not just without two of his very precious draft picks, but with more motivation to wipe the floor with his first-round-pick-having competition.

The NFL’s most egregious mistake, though, was Brady’s absurd four-game suspension to start the 2016 season. It was beyond insulting, and for someone like Brady, a lack of due respect is akin to breathing air into a drowning man’s lungs. It revives him, and like a man who’s seen his life flash before his eyes, he comes back with even more intention and fervor than he had before.

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The league attempted to humiliate all three of them, and what they got in return was a redemption story for the ages. Kraft and Belichick literally laughed at Roger Goodell on the podium as red, white and blue confetti rained down from the rooftops, and Kraft took the Lombardi Trophy from the commissioner and immediately trash-talked him and DeflateGate in his speech. The roars from the crowd say it all.